Things I Said a Lot, But Never Wrote, About South America . . . Until Now

A few weeks ago, my honey and I got back from a trip to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. We saw many beautiful things, had interesting conversations with locals and travelers alike, ate good food, and wandered about in cities and in ruins and things. It was pretty great fun.


Mostly, people have wanted to hear about these positive things. As soon as I've delved into some of the not so great/comfortable things, they sort of want to divert the conversation - "But didn't you see Macchu Pichu?" Yeah, we saw Macchu Pichu. It was fucking amazing. But I need to tell you some other things . . . things many people don't want to hear/read . . .


First, though, I also want to acknowledge that no matter how limited our resources are in terms of This American Life, that we are extremely privileged to have had enough resources to have taken this trip, and we recognize that. Often we caught ourselves in the midst of messy, unsustainable, culturally appropriating tourism. If we did, we did our best to get out, or at least analyze the situation and start a conversation about it, if only amongst ourselves. And we tried our darnedest to do better the next time. This isn't about being better or more legit than anyone else. We just really tried our best in imperfect circumstances. And we noticed that lots of other people didn't even seem to notice the circumstances for anyone other than themselves. And yes, it would be a serious omission if I didn't admit that these people were almost always white.


Nothing but love for y'all, especially those who are open to talking about this stuff and trying to be better, but here are the Top Five Fucked Up Things White People Do While Traveling. (To be fair, douchey travelers of all stripes do these things . . . but it really is about 95% white folks.)


1. Speak English

Seriously? Are you seriously speaking English to this indigenous person right now? Are you seriously asking for directions in English? When they don't understand you, are you seriously talking more loudly and more slowly in hopes that they eventually will? The indigenous people here already had to learn one colonizer's language in order to be able to communicate with intruders, and it's called Spanish. Learn some basics and try a little harder or go visit England instead.


2. Take Pictures of Indigenous People

Wow. Have you not even cracked your Lonely Planet? Even the most irresponsible and most basic guidebooks will tell you that it is disrespectful to take photos of indigenous people, *especially* without their permission. Did you not read that part? Did you not care? Do you think that because you are willing to throw a big bill at them afterward, that you are doing them a favor? Can you understand that this is not the It's a Small World ride at Disneyland, but rather, the land and culture of the human beings with whom you are face to face? Will you ever understand that not everything is for sale, or for your consumption?


3. Buy Property/Start a Business in a "Developing" Country

I find language like "third world" and "developing country" problematic, but I don't yet have better shorthand to describe that some countries have less stuff & less money than the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, etc. due to capitalism, colonialism, genocide, globalization, and the rest. And thus, for travelers from these "developed" countries, everything seems really cheap. Hooray! Let's buy a bunch of stuff we can't afford at home! Right? Guys? Where are you going . . .?

Your sane friends are walking away, New-Zealand-guy-who-bought-land-and-built-a-hostel-on-it, because this is not right. It's WRONG. How would you feel if you really liked where you lived, and then some rich asshole came and bought up the prime real estate on the river, built a really big house, invited more rich assholes to come stay there, and employed like two people from your town to wait hand and foot on the rich assholes, basically being treated like servants to work for peanuts? I'll go out on a limb and guess you probably wouldn't like it that much. Add in the factors of race, culture, language ("It's really inconvenient for the Americans, Maria, when you don't speak English."), and historical context of people of your race and class being colonizers, mass-murderers, and enslavers, and we've got more than I can cover in this here paragraph, buddy.


4. Complain About the Food

I will admit, I complained about the food in Peru after a while. It was really difficult to get diverse vegetables in my meals, which I am used to because I am spoiled, and it was next to impossible to get a meatless meal. However, if I was faced with a bus station ham and cheese sandwich on white bread, I tried to remember that the health of people all across the world is suffering at the hands of big corporations and the governments who subsidize their unhealthy crap, like white bread and hormone-filled meat. I didn't blame the whole damn culture. I know that Peru grows a bazillion different types of potatoes, and that heirloom corn is plentiful, as is quinoa. I know that people traditionally eat alpaca, probably after a decent lifespan for the alpaca during which I am sure its warm fur is sheared and used for clothing. I know that it is not the fault of the Peruvian people that it's hard to find quinoa and greens at a restaurant, but chicken and white rice is all over the place.

Travelers who complain about food and throw around sentences like, "The food is crap," really piss me off. I heard travelers make disparaging remarks like this without recognizing anything like what I briefly discussed above, not even to mention their lack of remembering that what people grow up with and are used to eating is what they tend to like. And food is different in different regions of the world. What grows is different, how it's prepared is different, and even what is subsidized, cheap, unhealthy, and plentiful can be different. It all informs the cuisine and culture of a place, and to dismiss the food so wholly and rudely is to dismiss the entire culture.


5. Complain About a Place

Take that phrase from #4, above: "The food is crap." Now replace "The food" with the name of a city or country. Seriously. I can't believe that I actually heard travelers say something like, "Ecuador is crap. Barely worth it. Hurry up and get out of there." WHAT. THE. FUCK. How are you going to insult a whole country like that? You're LUCKY, buddy, that the country let you in to experience its riches in the first place. But because you couldn't find enough people who spoke English, or because you couldn't find the kind of fancy food you like, or because I don't even know what your crazypants high-falutin' expectations are, you decide to tell everyone the country is crap? Even if you got robbed, you asshole, what kind of disrespect is that? Which, side note, is probably caused by POVERTY. Idiot. Learn something about the reality of the world and oppression and imbalanced distribution of resources before you even step out of your own house in the morning, fool, and save the world from having to deal with you.


/rant

Dear Oakland

Dear Oakland,

I'm sad, because I feel like you are pushing me out and away after 5 years of trying to make you home.

I often refer to myself as an uprooted sapling. Torn from the soil of my homeland and thrust into the wind. For a long while I thought my little roots would just shrivel up and I would drift forever. But then I (somewhat unknowingly at the time) began a search for hospitable soils, a new home. I found peace in Oakland. I found friends in Oakland. I found a home and two jobs in Oakland within a week and a half or so of being here! I found people who used the word "community" liberally. Being from LA and having gone to school in Santa Barbara, I was baffled. What is this "community" of which they speak? But then I started to know my neighbors and recognize them at the coffee shop. I started to see people around enough times that we finally just said hello. I did favors for people I knew well and people I barely knew at all. I went to parties & protests & potlucks. I could be my whole damn self - bruised and brown and a little strange. Cranky or in a good mood, on a skateboard or in heels, and it didn't matter whose hand I was holding, or if I was holding anyone's hand at all . . . nobody batted an eyelash. I felt like I had a little safety net made of people with their arms interlocked. If I wobbled on the tightrope of life and fell, they would catch me.

I got to know more and more people. I realized how networks work. Everybody knows everybody. I started to know more of this community's history. Who knows who, who slept with who, who dated who, who's kid that is, who worked where, who never speaks to that one person over there. I had some of my own relationships fall apart. Friendships, romantic relationships. I tried my best to stay friendly with ex's, but sometimes their lies and deceit were too much to bear. Sometimes just the hurt was too much to bear. I tried to stay on decent terms with friends as our relationships shifted and grew apart. But sometimes the blame was too much, or something else was too much, and we just couldn't do it anymore. Adult playgrounds became difficult. I used to see people navigating social scenes with caution: "I didn't invite her because her ex is dating HER." I never thought I'd be one of those people. I had always prided myself on maintaining good relationships with appropriate boundaries, and loving people unconditionally and forever. But I started to see myself as a player in that game. People started telling me when certain people would be at certain events. Or I just plain didn't get invited.

I realized that I had very very few close friends and lots of acquaintances. That I didn't feel comfortable asking anyone to bring me soup when I am sick anymore, or to drive me to the airport. Because there was only the one friend who had ever offered to do those things and I didn't want to ask for too much of him. I realized that I don't actually have anyone to call when I just need to have a good cry with a good friend who would tell me everything would be okay. I realized that some of my damaged relationships would never be healed - I could take responsibility for some part of that, but sometimes shit just sucks and shit just happens and people shit on you. That's a lot of shit. I realized that I had no idea what the future held. And that used to be okay. But it wasn't anymore.

I want to have a family. I want a partner and I want to birth a kid. I want a home. I want friends and I want a community. I want to trade recipes and sad stories and bunches of kale for the Meyer lemons off of your tree. I want to go out dancing and hug half of the people in the club. I want to go for a walk without the fear in my heart that I will run into one of those people who hurt me so badly that I feel like I would just disintegrate if I saw them. I want to feel like I can tell the truth. I want to give to people and do them favors and cook them meals and watch their kids. And I want them to do that for me. I want to feel like it's okay to ask. I want friends who will call me when they know I am having a hard time and ask if I need anything. Just like they would call me if they knew I was in a great mood and wanted to go run around in the sunshine and laugh.

Can Oakland give me this? Am I asking too much? I know I am responsible for creating some of it, and believe me, I am trying my best, with my limited time, energy, and resources. But it's really difficult to keep giving if you're not getting anything back, and I feel like I've been experiencing that for just a little too long now. I know that the most valuable gift I can give is one for which I don't expect anything in return. But the world is rapidly changing and our systems are falling apart, and the only thing we've got to see us through it is each other. And I don't want to go out alone.

Happy Holidays & Sorry About the Genocide Pact I'm About to Sign!

I'm in Copenhagen, Denmark right now for this.

It's the final day of negotiations, and I don't think any of us knew what to expect exactly. I know that we certainly didn't expect that our leaders would magically & suddenly grow a conscience and throw traditional political deal-making protocol to the wind in favor of saving humanity. But maybe we dared to dream a bit . . . maybe we thought that our vigils, our protests, our actions, our pleas, the mountains of emails that have been pouring into our electeds' inboxes that poor little interns have to sift through . . . maybe we thought some of that would help them aim a little higher, at least pretend to respect human life, no, ALL life, enough to make a real deal and save our asses. Maybe we thought the science would convince them.

While the final text has yet to emerge from the clusterfuck that is COP15, all signs (including world leaders' orations this morning) point to a treaty that will facilitate the impending apocalypse. Most notably, POTUS Barack Obama, once hoped to swoop in as a last-minute game-changer, stood in front of a microphone today to deliver a flat, uninspired speech confirming the US's laughable carbon emissions reduction targets: 17% by 2020, and 80% by 2050. Perhaps out of embarrassment, he didn't even bother providing the baseline year for those targets, but we'll assume that it's consistent with earlier reports - 2005. For those of you whose eyelids are drooping at the numbers, I'll sum it up quickly by saying that that we need to commit to reductions of 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 to stabilize the climate and not threaten the lives of millions of people around the world.

So, when just about an hour later I received an email from Organizing for America, the group of dedicated organizers who brought you the Presidency of Barack Obama, I was a bit puzzled. Were they apologizing to me already?

Nope. They were sending me a holiday card. From the President. Who just told me through a live stream from the heavily guarded Bella Center that he's like, totally okay with displacement, hunger, lack of water, resource wars, and death for millions of people on the planet.

"Happy Holidays, Persian Girl!" was shouted to me by groups of friendly Americans from around the country in a montage, before I was treated to a special appearance by the Big O himself, wishing me Happy Holidays & signing a card made out to me.

Possibly they're wishing us happy holidays now because they know they may only have a few more years to do so before we're dead of some climate change related affliction? Happy Holidays indeed.

Colonialist Mentality on the Daily: A Micro-level Analysis

With a heavy heart and three big bumps on my precious noggin, I take to the outlet of my blog to write this.

This past Saturday night I went to a show in San Francisco I had been so looking forward to. Telefon Tel Aviv's melodic, ambient sounds awaited me (sans Charlie Cooper, RIP) at Bottom of the Hill, a venue in Potrero I had yet to visit. I, recently dumped, and with a health scare the previous week, was determined to enjoy myself that day and night, having treated myself to clothes I couldn't afford earlier on in the day and hoping the music would soothe some of my worries away.

I should say, I get nervous in crowds sometimes. Especially when I don't look like everyone else in the room. (as in all the time.) The show was predominantly white, with weedwhacker haircuts and facial piercings and the sour expressions of surly San Franciscans as far as the eye could see. "It's okay," I thought, "I've been here before. We have this music in common, so it's all good."

My friends and I stood near the stage, staking our spot through one non-offensive opening act and another terribly offensive Depeche Mode meets The Wedding Singer meets Megadeth meets latfh.com act. Then Telefon Tel Aviv came on, and the room was hushed. We swayed and smiled and closed our eyes. We danced lightly. It was a sweet and mellow time. Before the second to last song, Joshua said, "This one's for Charlie," and the night was starting to feel complete, regardless of the obnoxious couple who had crowded up behind me and my friend and were pushing us into the stage. I had managed to ignore them thus far, and refrained from the shit-talking I would usually participate in about people with their particular fashion sense. I chose to succumb to the music instead, even when I vaguely half-heard her make some disparaging remarks about me.

But as soon as the last song started, she of the tacky red thrift store dress and ridiculous hair took it a little too far. She pushed into me, intentionally, a couple of times before I finally turned around and asked her to back up. She was immediately aggro, coked out probably, refusing to back up even though she was pushing me right into the stage. So I told her to shut up and back the fuck up out of my space and turned around.

Before I knew what was happening, she had grabbed me by my curls from behind and was smashing her drink glass into my head. I tried to turn around but I couldn't see anything, as she was pushing my hair into my face. One of the only things I remember thinking during the brawl was how much I miss my shaved head. I attempted to swing, punch, claw, but I was useless. She had sucker punched me. For someone who knows how to kick some goddamn ass when she needs to, this was frustrating to say the least.

I emerged from my own hair curtain slipping on broken glass and soaking wet with booze. I hadn't had a drop to drink that night because of the antibiotics I am on, and immediately pictured myself getting pulled over on the drive home and trying to explain to a police officer that no, I swear, I was not drinking.

I saw that a circle had formed and that her boyfriend was holding her back, seemingly to protect her. It took every ounce of strength I had not to lunge at her, not because of any attempt at making peace, but because after all, we know which skin tone gets arrested in situations like this, don't we? So instead, I shouted as loud as I could varied obscenities peppered with phrases like "You're a tacky bitch!" and "Your hair is lame!" (it really was.)

I walked right past my two friends who had been near me the whole time. I knew they wouldn't do what I needed a friend to do in this situation. I've rarely known a white person to understand this kind of situation, unless they were raised within a certain class, which my friends definitely were not. I went to the back room to look for my brown friend/lover, who had gone to lie down in a booth a few minutes earlier, mellowed by the music. Somehow, through alcohol dripping into my eyes, I explained what happened. He jumped up with the fury that a brown, immigrant tranny exudes in the face of such injustice. He knew what was up.

We walked toward the exit and saw the happy white couple at the end of the bar, looking like they were about to order another drink. We raged. It's a blur. We were alternating telling the tacky bitch that we'd see her outside with trying to explain to the bar staff what happened.

Are you ready for the big fucking surprise of the year? The bar staff started yelling at us, treating us like Angry Brown People, telling us to calm down. I told them they wouldn't fucking be calm if some dumb bitch had just broken a glass over their head. They said there was no way to know what happened. I told them they could go ask any of the six people who were asking me if I was okay after seeing what happened. They acted like we were crazy. They acted like we were the ones who fucked up, who did something wrong. They let her go. They didn't call the cops. They let her go and told me to calm down. They lied about having security on the dance floor. They let her go. They didn't call the police. They told me to calm down. They let her go!

Can you imagine that it would be at all possible for a brown person to do that to a white person in a predominantly white bar and to have the white staff, ironic mustaches and all, tell the white person to calm down and let the brown person go without calling the cops? If you are brown or have half a brain, you know that this would never happen.

My friend wanted to kick her ass outside, but I insisted she wasn't worth it. She walked off with her boyfriend and friend, making gestures she probably saw on MTV, probably walking back to the apartment her parents pay the rent for. I yelled at them as they walked away, obscenities . . . I couldn't control myself. It was either that or cry and I couldn't let the entitled bitch see me cry.

I tried to tell the door guy that in the future, he should call the police in such situations. He interrupted me, wouldn't let me finish, told me I should have come to him (which I did do.) He ignored the facts and chose to belittle me, dismiss me, treat me like an angry brown person.

Fuck yeah I'm an angry brown person.

Whether on the macro-level or the micro-level, this situation is what happens over and over and over in the world:

White people believe they are entitled to something (ie. space), and so choose to take it. If a brown person challenges them, they get rude. If said brown person challenges them further, they get violent. When some regulatory body is brought into it, they are almost always white and assume that the brown person did something wrong. The brown person gets accused; the white person gets off scot-free. White person goes on believing that the world is theirs and that they deserve and can have whatever they want.

Anybody who tells me this is not the case has got their head up their ass. It is no coincidence that every brown person I know (and every brown person they know) has at least one story that demonstrates this cycle. If you think this isn't about race, you've managed to reach this point in your life with no understanding of history, politics, resource wars, genocide, corporate & governmental thievery of the people, etc. (you know, "reality.")

Fuck yeah I'm an angry brown person. Probably will be for my whole life unless and until white people, who think it's fine to just stay neutral in this fucked up cycle, stand up and say something, do something about the injustices that brown people face.

I have no happy ending here, no constructive and positive note to end on. What I experienced was fucked up and my head still hurts, two days later. And it's a part of the way this world is run and I'm mad as hell about it.

The End.

Labor Day

There are a LOT of things I could say about the “political” happenings of the past few weeks, which greatly intensified in the past few days. But I think the most important thing is:

Congratulations, Glenn Beck. Your ass is showing. As is the flabby, pasty ass of the entire Republican party.

You see, while the rest of us (you know, the majority of the country, the 75% or so who think you are a waste of space) are understandably upset this weekend, we also have renewed hope. Because we know the reason that you and your cronies started this schizophrenic smear-campaign against our friend Van is because we are winning. You’re shaking in your Men’s Wearhouse trousers and you don’t even know the half of it.

You see, if you thought taking out Van was going to be any kind of success, you were sorely mistaken. Because supporting Van and the movement for creating a just and sustainable economic system and combating climate change is an army of smart, savvy, trained leaders and organizers who are carrying out the work all around the country. Under-resourced? Absolutely. Exhausted? Definitely. Still determined? You betcha. And this pathetic demonstration of your fear of Van and everything he symbolizes has just emboldened us. We know that you only knew part of the story and that you were already terrified. Imagine if you knew the whole truth – that our movement has gone viral.

The good news for you and for all of us is that our win will not compromise you and your quality of life. Progressives by definition are working toward a better world for ALL, in contrast to conservatives who consistently work to oppress the “other.” So even though you make this game difficult for us (yes, all of you, even “nice” conservatives who support oppression via silence and apathy), when we win this seemingly uphill battle, you will not be left behind. We got you.

Holler at me in a few years. I’ll be the one growing tomatoes and harvesting rainwater. You’ll be the one with a useless pile of paper money and a Jesus fish on the back of your rusted SUV. I promise I’ll resist the urge to laugh in your face, and instead will share my bounty. You’re welcome in advance.

Something I wrote when I was 25.

Maybe I will float until I am level with the moon – and from there, where there is no day – from that vantage point, I will see the sleeping heads and writhing naked bodies and breast-feeding mothers and adult children holding the hands of their dying parents and I will hear adolescents weep in their sleep and I will watch addicts in ritual, cleaning the blinds while blasting Guns ‘n Roses, and maybe then it will all make sense.

Maybe I will continue to levitate and join god/goddess and I will be suspended right there next to him/her and from there I will watch the scope of it from birth to death to birth to death to birth and all the filler: the books read and the sex had and the tears shed and the drugs ingested and the religions and faiths lost and found and lost and found and lost again. I will hear the music made and I will watch the delusions created and the lies told, then the coming clean and the real revelations. Maybe then – maybe then I will understand.

And then I will leave the heavens and cycle back down to the dust from whence they claim we came and from deep inside the compost of decaying leaves and wormshit and layer upon layer of decomposing animal skin bits and the dead parts of trees and confusing pieces of blue plastic I will watch as everything is reborn. Seeds will sprout and mammal mothers will feed on the sprouts to nourish the new animals growing in their wombs and dogs will shit the digested cereal that sustains them onto me, but it’s more food for the insects and everything is where it should be. Maybe then – maybe then the questions will be answered.

What if

What if you were an unbound volume of love poems?
What if you were a stack of papers in between my sweaty palms?
What if I scattered you?
What if I bound you?
What if I trembled, holding you, unsure of what to do, unsure of how to share you?